In the heart of the Pacific Ocean, Hawai'i exists at a global
crosscurrent of indigeneity and race, homeland and diaspora, nation and
globalization, sovereignty and imperialism. In order to better understand how settler colonialism works and thus move decolonization efforts forward, Staking Claim analyzes competing claims of identity, belonging, and political status in Hawai'i.

Author Judy Rohrer brings together an analysis of racial formation and
colonization in the islands through a study of legal cases, contemporary
public discourse (local media and literature),
and Hawai'i scholarship. Her analysis exposes how racialization works to
obscure—with the ultimate goal of eliminating—native Hawaiian
indigeneity, homeland, nation, and
sovereignty.

Staking Claim argues that the dual settler colonial processes of
racializing native Hawaiians (erasing their indigeneity), and
indigenizing non-Hawaiians, enable the staking of
non-Hawaiian claims to Hawai'i. It encourages us to think beyond a
settler-native binary by analyzing the ways racializations of Hawaiians
and various non-Hawaiian settlers and arrivants bolster
settler colonial claims, structures, and white supremacist ideologies.

A few blurbs:

Rohrer brilliantly brings together works on indigenous politics, settler
colonialism, critical race theory, Native Pacific cultural studies,
gender analyses, and Chicana studies to unmask the power of settler
colonial processes, while highlighting ongoing resistances. It doesn't
stop there; rather, through her fearless engagement with indigenous
claims, Rohrer encourages and assists readers, haole or otherwise, to
imagine a more just and decolonial future.
—Noenoe K. Silva

Focusing on how racializing processes have worked in tandem with land
loss, Rohrer skillfully details how haoleness (whiteness) might be
activated in ways that unsettle rather than further the structures of
settler colonialism that have captured us all. This book brilliantly
demonstrates the vitality and necessity of engaging indigeneity across a
range of disciplines and subject positions. —Jodi A. Byrd,